Zee Tele to acquire 57 pc stake in ETC NetworkMumbai, February 18
Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) is to acquire about 57 per cent equity stake in ETC Networks Ltd from its promoters and through preferential allotment for about Rs 25 crore even as the entertainment major’s board meets tomorrow to consider its corporate restructuring plans.

RAILWAY BUDGET
Hike in passenger fare likelyKolkata, February 18
The Railway Budget for 2002-03, which the Railway Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar will present in Parliament on February 26, aims at freezing further freight increase. But a 2 to 8 per cent hike in the passenger fare is likely. The monthly ticket will also cost more, according to highly-placed sources close to the Railway Ministry.

Budget should attend to the structural weaknessesTHE
government has taken quite a few decisions of significance for the economy, some of which will enter into the budgetary arithmetic while others should help to tone up the general industrial and investment climate.

BEL acquires Mini Ratna statusNew Delhi, February 18
Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore has acquired the Mini Ratna status. BEL is first Public Sector Undertaking
(PSU) of the Ministry of Defence to acquire the operational status of Mini Ratna Category-I.

Ritu Beri, seen in this undated recent photo, has been named as head of ready-to-wear at the French house of Jean-Louis Scherrer in
Paris on Monday. Fashion mogul Mouinir Moufarrige announced his decision to appoint Beri, a star in India where her couture creations are worn by Bollywood film stars and generate $4.5 million in annual sales, in a bid to turn around the ailing ready-to-wear label.
— Reuters

Bharti
Tele-Ventures shares listedMumbai, February 18
Shares of Bharti Tele-Ventures, which raised Rs 834 crore early this month from the Indian and overseas market, got listed today amidst thin trading and nominal premium of about 11 per cent from its offer price of Rs 45 a share.

Birla Tech Services ties up with ONGIONew Delhi, February 18
Birla Technical Services, a part of CK Birla Group, has tied up with ONGIO International Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between Indian Oil Corporation and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, and New Oilfield and Allied Services for business collaboration in Nigeria.

ILD telephone to be launched in AprilKolkata, February 18
The eagerly-awaited International Long Distance (ILD) telephone service will be introduced on April 1, opening a new vista in the country’s telecommunication network, Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh said here today.

IOC’s open offer on 20 pc in IBPNew Delhi, February 18
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will launch an open offer from April 12 to acquire 20 per cent stake in IBP at Rs 1551.10 per share, having already acquired 33.58 per cent government equity by virtue of being the highest bidder.

French
bid adieu to francParis, February 18The French yesterday bid farewell
to their franc, one of Europe’s oldest currencies, as the new single
European currency replaces the old currency for good. They had until
midnight Sunday to pay with franc notes and coins in bars, restaurants
and in shops.

Mumbai, February 18
Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) is to acquire about 57 per cent equity stake in ETC Networks Ltd from its promoters and through preferential allotment for about Rs 25 crore even as the entertainment major’s board meets tomorrow to consider its corporate restructuring plans.

Zee today signed a memorandum of understanding to this effect with ETC promoters Jagjit Singh Kohli, Yogesh Radhakrishnan and Yogesh Shah.

Mr Goyal said the deal would be funded internally and ZTL would announce an open offer within the next four days. Both companies were currently seeking regulatory approvals. The entire process was expected to be complete in approximately three months after taking all the requisite nods.

ETC has two television channels in music and Punjabi segments, he said adding, additional revenues would be accrued by turning them into pay channels as part of Zee-Turner bouquet of 17 channels.

The day to day operations of ETC would continue to be managed by the existing team headed by Kohli, he said.

ETC in a notice to BSE said its board would meet on February 25 to consider the MoU and preferential allotment.
PTI

Kolkata, February 18
The Railway Budget for 2002-03, which the Railway Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar will present in Parliament on February 26, aims at freezing further freight increase. But a 2 to 8 per cent hike in the passenger fare is likely. The monthly ticket will also cost more, according to highly-placed sources close to the Railway Ministry.

In the Budget, however, a restructuring of the existing freight rate has been proposed which will bring additional freight revenue to the Railways.

But no increase has been planned in the freight for essential items like sugar, salt, grains, pulses, edible oils, kerosene, fruits, vegetables and LPG. Newspapers, magazines and life-saving drugs will get exemption.

Senior citizens, people below poverty line and handicapped and paraplegic persons will also continue to enjoy train travel facilities as usual.

The budget, which is now at its final stage of preparation, proposes to bring the country’s remote undeveloped areas under railway network for their development. A new fast train, —Jana Satabdi Express — would be introduced in different divisions at an affordable fare, Railway Board sources disclosed. There was no fare hike in the last two budgets. But Mr Nitish Kumar will have to take an unpleasant decision of fare rise to save the Railways from a financial derailment, said a senior member of the Board.

In the 2001-02 Budget, the freight earnings were targeted at Rs 25,235 crore, which, according to Railway Board’s estimation, will go up to about Rs 27,000 crore (8 per cent increase) in 2002-03, with an increased volume of goods traffic. The volume of goods traffic target will be about 525 million tonnes as against the present 500 million tonnes.

While the fare increase is likely to yield some Rs 13,000 crore during next year against Rs 11,387 crore of the previous year. In 2001-02, the fare earnings from upper-class passengers were estimated at Rs 2371 crore and from second-class passengers at Rs 9,015 crore.

But the railways have so far failed to attain the target of Rs 1,717 crore, earmarked in the Budget as earnings through various non-traditional resources, including leasing out Railways land for real estate and selling of old and unused assets.

Mr Nitish Kumar does not propose to introduce full-scale VRS in the Railways before deciding on the acceptance of the Rakesh Mohan Committee report which had suggested an over-all economic, administrative and structural changes in the Railways. The committee’s recommendations have been now under examination.

The Railway Minister, officials say, is now in an advantageous position with an additional earnings from safety surcharges, introduced in October last year which will bring about Rs 700 crore during the current year.

Moreover, this year, Mr Kumar has been assured of an additional grant of Rs 2,500 crore from the Union Budget for repairing and renovation works as part of the safety devices programme of Rs 15,000 crore, recommended by the Justice Khanna Committee, sources said.

The Railway Board officials, directly involved in the Budget-making process, said in the Budget, safety had been given the top priority with an enhanced allocation of Rs 4,000 crore. New trains will be introduced in some sections on commercial basis. Steps will be taken to bring the country’s remote areas under the Railways network for an over-all development.

THE
government has taken quite a few decisions of significance for the economy, some of which will enter into the budgetary arithmetic while others should help to tone up the general industrial and investment climate.

Hopefully, these moves represent a new resolve to turn to domestic priorities unaffected by polemics that has overtaken the national agenda. Industry and trade have welcomed the fresh winds and markets have buoyed up.

Firstly, disinvestment has at last begun to pick up some momentum though it is still in early stages. Private bids for VSNL and IBP accepted by government will fetch Rs 2500 crore while the proposed divesture in the two major oil corporations, HPCL and Bharat Petroleum, could be the next major transaction during 2002.

Disinvestment is not a vehicle to bridge budgetary gaps but should become an integral part of industrial
restructuring which itself should be viewed as part of re-equipping Indian industry to become globally competitive. India can look for large markets for quality goods produced at relatively lower costs. The corporate sector should not merely be looking at incentives to produce more and sell to the vast home market for profit.

Undoubtedly, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Balco case, upholding the procedure adopted in the strategic sale of this state-owned aluminium plant, which was mired in political controversy, has given a boost to the Department of Disinvestment to come into its own and chart a clearer road map.

The Budget targets in disinvestments are never fulfilled and in many years, there were negligible outturns. In the 2001-02 Budget, the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, has assumed Rs 12,000 crore, of which Rs 5000 crore was to be added to plan funds.

Even it this target is not met in the year ending March 2002, there is encouraging progress which would perhaps embolden Mr Sinha to provide for capital receipts under disinvestments for the coming year.

It may seem strange that the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, should talk of public sector as “pillars of our economy” while the process of privatisation gets under way vigorously. Even notions of “strategic” and non-strategic sectors are constantly changing.

With the state’s exclusive role limited to hardly three or four areas such as atomic energy, arms and railways — private sector has been allowed to take up defence equipment. And railways cannot long be protected from corporatisation with some role for private sector. It is but natural that all other public undertakings should either remain strong and profit-yielding or subjected to restructuring through divestiture of equity and strategic sales.

The Administrative Pricing Mechanism for petroleum products is set to be withdrawn from April 1. Since excise duty changes will form part of the budget, how a market system for these products evolves itself will have to be watched. Import parity prices will be given for domestic crude while the refineries would fix product prices though an element of subsidy would continue for kerosene and LPG. The oil pool account has to be wound up making good its deficit through a bond mechanism.

The new export policy for the next five-years, setting an annual target of 11.9 per cent, is a modest exercise as it would take another five years before India would have at least one per cent share of world trade, a goal which was to have been achieved by the end of the 1990s.

The policy measures are by no means new and both Government and the exporting community must gear themselves to operationalise the policy and must quickly respond to emerging trends and product preferences to sustain and improve upon the market share.

The pre-Budget economic decisions have set the tone for the Finance Minister’s Budget which may reel off a few more steps, all of which would be presented as a major step forward in implementing the reform agenda. But the real task before the Finance Minister is to get the economy moving again to come out of a low-growth syndrome.

The Central Statistical Organisation’s (CSO) quick and advance estimates place GDP growth at 4 per cent in 2000-01 and 5.4 per cent in 2001-02 falling behind the 6.5 to 7 per cent target.

The Ninth Plan has ended with an average even below 5.5 per cent against the revised plan target of 6.5 per cent.

The CSO data bring out the structural weaknesses in public finance and performance of the real sectors of the economy. Gross domestic savings had risen marginally to 23.4 per cent of GDP in 2000-01, which was attributable mainly to rise in household savings and, to some extent, in the private corporate sector.

Public sector savings are negative as Government consumption expenditure has been rising leading to massive dissavings which totalled Rs 106.521 crore in 2000-01.

Thus, an increase in domestic savings should come only from the government bringing down the consumption expenditure. The expenditure reform would therefore become important in the forthcoming budget in the overall scheme of containing revenue and fiscal deficit while increasing the public sector share of capital formation.
IPA

New Delhi, February 18
Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore has acquired the Mini Ratna status. BEL is first Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) of the Ministry of Defence to acquire the operational status of Mini Ratna Category-I.

The government seeks to make public sector more efficient and competitive by granting enhanced autonomy and delegation of power to make them consistently profit-making units.

By attaining the status, the PSU will have certain amount of autonomy with regard to capital expenditure, establishing joint venture companies, entering into transfer of technology (ToT) agreements and implementation of schemes relating to human resources management. The BEL’s Mini Ratna Category-I status became operational with the government appointing three non-official, part-time directors on the BEL Board. These part-time directors are Dr Rammohan Rao of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Padmashri Prof N. Balakrishnan, Chairman, Division of Information Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Mr K.N. Gupta, Controller of Certifying Authorities Ministry of Information Technology, New Delhi.

To acquire the Mini Ratna Category - I status, a PSU must have made profit continuously during the past three years, the pre-tax profit should have been over Rs 30 crore in at least one of the three years and should have a positive net worth.

Mumbai, February 18
Shares of Bharti Tele-Ventures, which raised Rs 834 crore early this month from the Indian and overseas market, got listed today amidst thin trading and nominal premium of about 11 per cent from its offer price of Rs 45 a share.

The scrip, which opened at Rs 50 at BSE moved downward later during the day to touch Rs 44, below the issue price of Rs 45 with a volume of 32.59 lakh shares, according to BSE data available.

BTL had allotted shares at a floor price of Rs 45 per share (face value of Rs 10 plus Rs 35 towards premium) after its initial public offering of 18.5 crore shares through a 100 per cent book building route.

The IPO was more than 2.5 times oversubscribed.

According to marketmen, the sentiments were not bullish on the Bharti counter but refused to give any reason for that.

BTL Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, talking to reporters after the listing, said the company was targeting to reach 40 per cent profit earning for its new cellular ventures in the next two years.
PTI

New Delhi, February 18
Birla Technical Services, a part of CK Birla Group, has tied up with ONGIO International Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between Indian Oil Corporation and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, and New Oilfield and Allied Services for business collaboration in Nigeria. The agreement has been signed with the objective of entering the petrochemical market in Nigeria in a big way.

As a part of this tie-up the consortium plans to enter the Nigerian market in the upstream and downstream hydrocarbon sectors. It also plans to take up assignments in various fields, including seismic data processing and interpretation, reservoir modelling, drilling, mud engineering, well control and production process simulation.

Announcing the tie-up, Mr B.S.Gilra, Executive Vice President of Birla Technical Services said “we are looking forward to work closely with ONGIO, acting as catalyst in transferring the expertise developed by IOC and ONGC over the last fifty years in oil exploration, production and refining sectors.”

Kolkata, February 18
The eagerly-awaited International Long Distance (ILD) telephone service will be introduced on April 1, opening a new vista in the country’s telecommunication network, Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh said here today.

Participating in an interactive session with members of the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce (MCC), Mr Ghosh said after a thorough scrutiny only four major private operators had left for the much sought after bidding for the ILD licence, which would be issued to only one of them for providing the service within the country.

Referring to the strict guidelines for ILD licencing, Mr Ghosh said only four out of 15 initial bidders had qualified for the process. They included the Bharati Telecom, well-known Internet service provider N.O.W., and the Pacific Net West, all of which had to provide an entry fee, bank guarantee and net worth of Rs 25 crore each.

None of them should also have no dues to the Telecom Department by any means, Mr Ghosh emphasised and claimed that the introduction of ILD facility by April would place India at par with the ‘handful’ of most advanced nations in the telecommunication sector.

About the fate of the Communication Convergence Bill, aimed at introducing a universal regulation in the Telecom sector and several other important factors, Mr Ghosh, who is also the Chairman of the Telecom Comm, said the bill had already been referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee and was expected to be passed during the coming Budget Session itself.
UNI

New Delhi, February 18
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will launch an open offer from April 12 to acquire 20 per cent stake in IBP at Rs 1551.10 per share, having already acquired 33.58 per cent government equity by virtue of being the highest bidder.

The offer envisages acquisition of 44.29 lakh shares of IBP and is slated to close on May 11.

“The government of India has, for a period of two years after the expiry of one year from the closing date (February 19, 2002), additional right of a put option requiring IOC to purchase from it some or all shares held by the government at that time,” IOC said in the offer letter.

The second highest bidder in the race, Royal Dutch Shell, had offered Rs 595 crore against the reserve price of Rs 337 crore.

Also in the fray was Reliance, which had put in two separate bids. The total amount IOC might have to shell out for this bid would be Rs 687.05 crore and the company says most of it would be taken from internal accruals.
PTI

New Delhi, February 18
Mahindra and Mahindra
(M&M) is setting up a subsidiary in Europe by April to sell its
products in the region, a senior company official said today. M&M
would initially market its tractors through the subsidiary and later
convert it into a unit for assembling those imported from India as
knocked-down parts, he said. PTI

Anti-asthma drug
Mumbai, February 18
Ranbaxy Laboratory Ltd today said it has received the approval of Drug Controller of India to market the anti-asthma compound, Montelukast, in the country. The company will launch the product under the brand name, ‘Romilast’. Romilast will be available in 10 mg coated tablets and 4mg/5mg mouth-dissolving tablets forms, it said.
UNI

Cadbury
New Delhi, February 18
Cadbury Schweppes today said it has decided not to revise the offer price of Rs 500 per share by its British parent for taking its holding in the Indian arm to 100 per cent and that the offer will close on February 22.
PTI

Palio Sport
Bathinda, February 18
Fiat India launched Palio Sport car here today. Mr M.P. Bianchi, MD, of the company spoke about the salient features of the new vehicle at the launch.
OC

Tata Coffee
Kolkata, February 18
Tata Coffee bagged twelve out of the forty quality awards, including the Finest Speciality Coffee of India award, announced at the India International Coffee Festival 2002 here today.
UNI